Sprague Family Update

It’s been quite some time since we’ve posted anything here on our website, and while many of you have been keeping up with us via Facebook, others of you have been completely left in the dark.  Here’s a quick update on the Sprague family.  Both of us have completed our masters degrees (Terra’s an MEd and Jason’s an MBA), graduating from their universities with high honors and are still living in Bristol, England.

Jason is working as a management consultant for Happold Consulting based out of their Bath office.  He travels two or three days a week to client sites in Manchester, London and Birmingham and the balance of the time works in the Bath office or from home.  He helps clients to plan and implement change processes in their businesses.  He’s also staying busy helping in a volunteer capacity as a trustee for Changes Bristol, a non-profit charity that offers talking therapy for people with mental health problems.

Terra is working on a contract basis at the University of Bristol’s Graduate School of Education doing some report editing, researching and writing on a variety of projects.  Most notably, she’s helping to write and manage the production process of an upcoming book about educational priorities in small states of the commonwealth, which is due to complete by Easter.  She’s still on the hunt for funding to start her PhD next autumn, researching cultural impacts of recent education reforms in small states, Armenia in particular.

Anoush is growing leaps and bounds in both physical and cognitive senses.  She’s a 20 month old cuddly chatter box who is quickly learning the art of wielding her free will.  Here favourite phrases now are “happy day” and “you okay?”  She loves to help Mom with laundry and sweeping the floor.  She is very good at entertaining herself and loves playing with her dolls and stuffed animals, coloring and is still a big fan of reading and going to the library.

We have some big family changes on the horizon as well.  If you haven’t heard, we’re expecting a baby mid April.  Tera is 22 weeks pregnant and feeling well with a returned sense of energy and enjoying the second trimester.  Given the circumstances of Anoush’s birth, she’ll have a late-pregnancy scan around 37 weeks to be sure this baby doesn’t prefer the breech presentation, and provided a normal presentation, will be allowed a home birth with the midwifes.  Given our growing family situation, we’re also moving into a larger apartment after the first of the year.  We are still in Bristol and will actually be moving just five minutes up the road from our current place.  If you’d like our new address, let us know and we’ll gladly send it to you via email.

This Website is still active … kinda

Apologies for the long silence.  We will post photos and an update soon.

A Quick Update

Hello everyone!  People have been droping me notes asking for an update on life.  Instead of sending boilerplated email messages, I thought I would put up a quick blog post.

Busy is an understatement.  I am full on with my dissertation (thesis in US terms).  The topic of my dissertation is decision making in the public policy context.  I am working with Dorset County Council (a lovely place on the south coast of England) to develop a decision matrix and over come barriers to good decisions for their rights-of-way issues.  England has a law called Countryside Access Act 2000 which grants people the right to cross private property on defined rights-of-ways.  However, Dorset County does not have a methodology for making decisions and I will help them with that problem.  My previous topic was abandoned because it was not academic enough but made for great business problems.

Work is going well for me.  I am starting a new project in Manchester England for the Highways Agency which is a large national body that governs all of the highways.  I will be doing project management and cost benefit analysis modelling for the traffic officer service which is a £220 million programme.  We have to find a way to expand the programme by 100% with only a 5% increase in spending.  It is a fascinating change management problem.  Work will have me in Manchester on a weekly basis as well as visiting the seven regional offices through out the country.  Additionally, I will manage a £500,000 project for Dorset County which involves helping them develop business processes and data models to handle all of the management and improvement of their drainage assets.  As you can image, there are billions of pounds worth of public assets buried under the ground in the form of sewage and drainage pipes which require maintenace.  The problem Dorset faces is that the infrastructure is so old that they do not know what assets they have.  I will be helping manage a team that must determine the basic question of “how do we identify what we do not know and then locate it?”  It will be a challenge to say the least.

I have an offer to go full-time in January with Happold.  I think I will accept their offer as we have a good life in Bristol and we would like to remain in this corner of the world.  I do not want to move up to the Bains, McKinseys, or other consultants based out of London.  I would be away from Tera and Anoush 5.5 days a week.  Of course, I would be paid well, but frankly, money is not my driving motivator in life.

On top of being a working stiff and spending my free time communing with decision theory, I have been approached to start a business.  Last spring, I did a bunch of work for the University of the West of England’s Robotics Programme.  The university has one of the biggest research labs in Europe and they generate stacks of ideas.  However, we find that good research scientists make awful businessmen.  I have been asked to join a partnership (business plan currently in development) that will be an ideas factory comprised of a few of these research scientists.  We will take research, commercialise it, get it to a prototype phase and then market it.  With my computer background, I can lend a hand with the technology although writing machine code (aka computer programming for devices) on embedded microprocessors does not get me excited but taking the product to market does.  This would be a long term project which I would do on top of working.  The hope is that in five years the business would be well known and people would solicit our help to solve problems with technology.  The whole idea is making dumb things smart in a cheap and efficient manner.  Who knows long term if the business will develop legs but I know that I must start a business to achieve future success and flexibility.

I am quite “Jason focused” at the moment as Tera and Anoush are back in Clymer (of course you know that by reading the following post).  I am really happy that they both have a prolonged period of time to be home.  Ideally, we would live in WNY and maybe my future business eventually allows us the flexibility to have a home in Clymer.  However, for now, we’ll have to settle for long stretches of time like this were Tera and Anoush can be back.

The next two months will be crazy as I finish up my dissertation.  I am excited to take a quick trip home for Christmas.  Lots of changes will happen in the next 90 days.  Here’s to hoping they all fall into place …

A Trip Home

On October 1, Anoush and I traveled from Bristol to my hometown to spend a few months with family. We’ve had a wonderful time full of great experiences including: Katrien’s second birthday party, Aunt Connie’s wedding, Aunt Wendy’s induction ceremony, a visit to see Great Grandpa Sellers, home football games, raking leaves, Halloween, and just spending evenings with cousins, aunts and grandparents. Anoush has quickly adjusted to being in a household full of hustle and bustle and now seems to enjoy being in the middle of it all.

I’ve been substitute teaching a few days a week and have enjoyed teaching not only elementary, middle and high school classes but also gym! Anoush enjoys her days with Aunt Kim and her cousins, Katrien and Kiera.

There are two sets of pictures, and more to come (I need to get more from my sister’s camera and will put those up soon to include our trip to see Grandpa Sellers). Just click on the photos tab at the top of this page and open the top two galleries to view the pictures.

Keep your eyes out for more to come.

Update on Life

As you may know, I started a new job as a management consultant for Happold Consulting upon our return from Armenia.  I will post a bit about Armenia in the coming week but many questions have been asked of me regarding work.

I must admit, it has been a bit of a culture shock returning to work in the western context.  On my first day, I was given a new cell phone, a new ultra portable laptop and docking station.  The office is an open plan so thankfully there are no cubicles.  I made a promise to myself come hell or high water that I will not return to a cubicle farm.  Everyone is busy coming and going with projects all over the UK and a few in the US and Europe.  Actually, if you are familiar with the Chicago Spire, Happold is doing a huge portion of the faciliation on the project.  The man who coordinates all the steel logistics (purchase, fabrication, shipping and installation) sits right next to me.  Also, the company is involved in the Olympic Statdium in London and a few other major projects such as the new Lourve museum in the United Arab Emerits.

As for me, my first project will be a change management project for Dorset County Council on the south coast of England.  It is about two hours south of Bristol by train.  The project involves bringing together a diverse set of stakeholders to develop a signage policy for the whole county that has a few towns and a handful of hamlets.  There is a “naked road” movement in the UK and northern Europe that is proving to be very cost effective while being safer for the public.  I have been brought in for my soft skills with the intention of building agreements between various organisations.  Using my soft skills and not my technical skills is certainly a focus for me as I switch careers tracks.

My commute to work is not too bad.  I walk about three quarters of a mile up to the local train station which I take to the main Bristol train station.  I catch another train to Bath and walk to the office.  It takes about an hour if all the connections go right.

The nice thing about the job is that a lot of time will be spent with the client.  Working with a public sector client is nice as the focus is not on the bottom line but on value for money.  In my previous work life, I did not like working to make someone redundant.  My success was juxtaposed to the detriment of someone else.  At least in this project, it is nice not to have that cloud overhead.

While working, I will have to do my dissertation as my deadline is January 2009.  It will be a busy six months to say the least!  However, being busier will certainly be to my benefit.

In closing, I have attached a video from work below.  This is the building of the Chicago Spire and it was developed by people I work with.  I thought you might enjoy watching it.

Interesting Information

My dear friend Colleen has an interesting video about some research she has done regarding giving habits.  For anyone involved in fundraising especially through websites, I highly recommend you watch this short video.  Also, the companion report is well worth reading.